This project sets out to demonstrate that media coverage can degrade a country's image by using selective news without context. It uses the Netherlands as an example. It is a reaction to the frequent misrepresentations of Israel in many ways in major media, including those of the Netherlands.

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

A major study by the OECD concludes that nowhere in the
world are school students as undisciplined and unmotivated as in the Netherlands. Even good pupils show little motivation. The Dutch education system doesn’t inspire
them to make the necessary effort. Yet
the Dutch education system itself is not bad, and a relatively high number of Dutch citizens
have graduated from high school. In
mathematics, natural sciences and languages, Dutch students are better than
their peers but grade lower than Asians.

Monday, May 30, 2016

The percentage of parents who are unmarried or have no
registered partnership has greatly increased in the past decades. In 1990 it was 11 percent, and now it is 44
percent. For first-born children, the
figure is over 50 percent. This data was
made public by the Central Bureau of Statistics. For nine out of ten children born out of
wedlock, the father is known. Most
fathers formally acknowledge their babies during pregnancy. Only in the Netherlands Bible Belt is the
percentage of children born to married parents high.

Sunday, May 29, 2016

Four Dutch lawyers say that the police regularly steal money
and valuables during investigations and arrests. The national ombudsman has started an
investigation and hopes to reach conclusions during the summer. Lawyer Louis de Leon says that whatever can
be stolen, is stolen. Money, jewels,
drugs, cars and Rolexes. The police
regret that the lawyers have not given concrete examples to support their
allegations on television.

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Abuse of public transportation staff is becoming
increasingly violent. This was stated by
university lecturer Ronald van Steden at the Amsterdam Free University. He said that while the number of incidents
has remained more or less stable, employees are confronted with extreme cases
of robbery, armed assault and bodily harm.

Friday, May 27, 2016

New recruits to the Royal Dutch Military Police, currently
being trained for guarding and security duties against terror, are receiving
poor instruction. This became clear
after a visit of members of parliament to the Military Police’s training center
in Apeldoorn. The main shortcoming is
that recruits are not receiving adequate training in how to shoot. In the parliamentary debate, Minister Hennis
of Defense could not yet respond to the complaints but promised to investigate
the matter.

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Cancer patients do not get the same level of treatment in
hospitals due to cost-cutting measures.
This was reported by Professor Carin Uyl in her official inaugural
lecture at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam.
Some hospitals prefer not to prescribe expensive drugs, for which the
hospital has to carry 20% of the costs. In
addition, hospitals do not always prescribe diagnostic tests to identify the
nature and type of cancer, which have nowadays become very expensive. As a result there are unnecessary deaths from
cancer in Dutch hospitals.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Approximately three thousand employees of the police have
not yet gone through the screening process.
This was reported to parliament by Minister Ard van der Steur of
Security and Justice. None of these
people have access to the most confidential information. Yet this issue has been investigated because last
year a policeman was arrested who had leaked information to criminals. It turned out that he had not yet been
screened.

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

The consumer organization Consumentenbond has investigated
thirty hotel rooms in 3- or 4-star hotels, owned by both individuals and
chains. Findings in these rooms included,
inter alia, thick layers of dirt on the floor, mold and stains on the walls, litter,
befouled mattresses including dried blood and hairs, as well as fecal bacteria
on the shower floor.

Monday, May 23, 2016

In 2015 Amsterdam was again the least safe municipality of
the Netherlands. This results from information
published by the AD crime meter which is based on police data. The main contribution to its poor rating is
the large number of pickpocketing and street robberies. In 2015, there were 170 complaints of rape,
as against 98 a year before. Following
Amsterdam, which has been leading the field for many years, in 2015 Maastricht
came second in the ranking.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

The Inspectorate of health care has investigated 25
hospitals. Of these, 22 did not meet
standards. For instance, cleaning staff should be more effective and disinfect areas more stringently. Furthermore, patients should be better
evaluated with regard to contagious diseases on arrival at the hospital. In ten hospitals, insufficient attention is
given to whether patients are infected with resistant bacteria. In three-quarters of hospitals, isolation
room techniques are not up to date, and staff should be better trained in
isolation procedures.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Researchers from the University of
Utrecht have carried out a study on behalf of the Scientific and Documentation Center
(WODC) of the Ministry of Security and Justice. They investigated the period from
2011 to 2015. The researchers concluded that in the years 2011-2013 much
capacity, contacts and knowledge had been lost. In those years there was less
attention for threats. The head of the main anti-terror body NCTV Dick Schoof
agreed with the main findings of the report.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Radioactive waste at the Nuclear Center in Petten is stored
in an unsafe way. Furthermore, the
Center is so poorly guarded that it is an easy target for terrorists. The management of the Center does not meet
the legal requirements, because the managing company is in financial
difficulties and may go bankrupt.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

An Italian pizza baker in The Hague, Rocco Gasperoni, was finally
arrested after being sentenced to fourteen years in jail in Italy in 2007. He has been on the run since that time and
has successfully evaded arrest by security services who have been looking for
him for fifteen years. Neighbors say
that his pizzas were the best in the neighborhood.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

A FNV trade union official has said that security personnel at
Amsterdam’s Schipol airport are discussing sanctions in protest against their
heavy workload. This concerns the more
than 1500 persons who work in the luggage rooms and in passenger and personnel
security.

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

The inspectorate for security and justice writes in a
confidential report that thousands of asylum seekers have entered the
Netherlands this year without being properly processed. This took place in the centers of Budel and
Ter Apel. There were no proper body
searches, luggage was insufficiently checked, documents were not examined
properly, and asylum seekers’ phones were not checked for information they
contained. The inspectorate concludes
that this superficiality facilitates human trafficking and terrorism.

Monday, May 16, 2016

When a fire broke out in the new IJburg neighborhood in
Amsterdam, the fire brigade found that there were no water faucets available as
they had all been stolen by copper thieves two months previously, and were
never replaced. It therefore took much
longer than usual to start extinguishing the fire.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

It has only now become known that a Dutch Jihadi suspect,
Rached el J., had a disk full of military information in his backpack when he
was arrested two years ago. At that time
he was about to travel to Syria. The
information included training schemes for Jihadis, training in fighting and
survival techniques and the use of firearms.
His brother Soufian was killed last year in Syria.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

A report by the Environmental Defense
Organization (Milieudefensie) notes that in 11 locations of 58 investigated the
air quality does not meet European norms concerning nitrogendioxide. The problematic
locations are in Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam and Maastricht. The
organization claims that the European norm is far too weak to protect people’s
health. It adds “people have no choice of which air they respire. The problem
is urgent.”

Thursday, May 12, 2016

The pressure of the work at the police service Bewaken en
Beveiligen (BB) is too heavy. This service is responsible for the guarding of embassies
and other important buildings in The Hague. Currently also regular police carries
out some of its tasks. There is also a lack of armed vehicles. The police trade
union ACP has expressed its concern that the problems at the unit will also
have international consequences.

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

The Jewish defense organization The Center for Information
and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) is pressing charges against supporters of
the Dutch soccer champion PSV from Eindhoven. A video was posted of people with
PSV shorts singing “My dad was in the commandos, my mother in the SS. Together
they burned Jews, for Jews burn the best.” A PSV spokesperson expressed his horror
at the video.”

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Integration Lodewijk
Asscher (Labor Party) has said on behalf of the government that the hooligans in the
town of Ede have to be dealt with by the Netherlands and not by Morocco. Fifty
Moroccan Dutchmen have rioted in the past weeks in the town's Veldhuizen neighborhood.. Ede mayor Cees van der Knaap had called for help from the Moroccan
Consul General Khalid Guelzim, who then apologized on behalf of Morocco for the behavior of the youngsters.
Van der Knaap has been heavily criticized for his calling on the Moroccan diplomat.

Monday, May 9, 2016

Letterbox companies have deposited about $221 billion
dollars in countries with low tax rates, in particular Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Tax Justice International says that there are
more than 20,000 such letterbox companies in Amsterdam which benefit from low
Dutch taxes. As a result, tax
authorities worldwide may lose billions of Euros in tax.

Sunday, May 8, 2016

American experts have heavily criticized the poor security
at the Dutch nuclear reactors in Borssele, Petten and Delft. They said that are only equipped with light weaponry, and if there is a terrorist attack, it will take far too long to
bring in reinforcements. A great
majority in Parliament has expressed its concern that the nuclear plants are insufficiently
guarded.

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Employees of the DBB, which provides bodyguards for
politicians and members of the royal family, complain of abuses and a culture
of fear. They went to the press
anonymously because they say that their bosses do not take their complaints
seriously and have even taken retaliatory measures. Furthermore the service is structurally
understaffed which increases the problems.
The Dutch police trade union NPB confirms the truth of the complaints.

Friday, May 6, 2016

Former deputy minister of security and justice, Fred Teeven, says that he had to resign his position because criminals had given information to
journalists. The issue which brought him
down was that when he was a prosecutor, Teeven had concluded a financial agreement
with a criminal. It turned out that the
money involved was far more than his superior, minister Ivo Opstelten, had reported
to Parliament. Opstelten also resigned as a result of this issue. Teeven maintains that the deal he made with the
criminal was a very good one for the government.

Thursday, May 5, 2016

The General Dutch Intelligence Service (AIVD) has changed its policy and now considers children
from the age of 9 who go to Syria as a threat to such an extent that they are
being registered. They will now be
counted among the jihadists who have left the Netherlands. This is due to the fact that minors from the
age of 9 years old are being taken by ISIS to military training camps for
children. They learn to use fire-arms
and stabbing weapons. They are also
trained to carry out executions. Girls
from the age of 9 are being taught how they should assist their husbands in the
armed struggle. They are also required
to wear a veil from that age.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Mayor Cees van der Knaap of Ede has
decreed a prohibition of Assembly in part of the town's Veldhuizen neighborhood. This
after many cases of arson and vandalism by mainly Moroccan rioters in the past
days in the neighborhood. The police will be entitled to preventive frisking of
people it suspects. Earlier there were problems around New Years Eve.

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

At the end of January the Dutch
government decided after lengthy discussions that its F-16 fighter planes would
participate in allied bombings of IS in Syria. It now turns out that the U.S
which is heading the operations barely uses the Dutch planes because they can
only communicate by radio and lack equipment to communicate via satellite

Monday, May 2, 2016

The General Intelligence Service (AIVD) has reported that
the Netherlands was the target of a record number of cyber-attacks last
year. Most of these came from Russia and
China. They were aimed mainly at government
agencies and at innovative Dutch companies. The AIVD says that the Netherlands is “naïve” when it comes to online
security.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

The military police has warned that passengers may face long
lines at passport control in July and August at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport,
due to a shortage of military police.
The director of military police staff has written to Deputy Justice
Minister Dijkhoff that the military police is overloaded due to the additional
border controls and the protection of vital institutions. The management of Schipol Airport has also expressed
its concern about the problem.

Welcome to the Bad News from The Netherlands blog!

News coverage from Israel is often distorted if measured against the 'Code of Ethics' guidelines of journalism. The origins of “bad news” about a country thus lie with numerous foreign media. This project exposes one of many methods used.

“Bad News from the Netherlands” has raised major international interest since it appeared on the web in October 2007. Many thanks are due to all those who have contributed news, ideas and financing. Support us to expand this project.

Act against the biased media: start a “bad news” blog about another country. If you want to use this layout, please contact us at the e-mail address below.

Do It Yourself

The "Bad News Movement" is not a franchise, but consists ofindependent initiatives of which Bad News from the Netherlands is the first. Yet as the initiator of the movement, we would like to make a few suggestions to those who want to establish similar projects:

1. Always keep in mind the target of the blog: showing only negative items about a country makes its society aware of how some of their media distort the image of Israel.2. Focus on items from leading sources such as the government, major media, well-known institutions.3. Do not concentrate on one or a few areas. Deal with as many major aspects of the country as possible: government, politics, justice, media, culture, civil society, etc.4. Do not exaggerate issues beyond what is mentioned. A collection of bad news is bad enough without blowing up the facts. Let the facts speak for themselves.5. While one can draw part of the information from the more sensational papers, let them not dominate the blog.6. Do not emphasize ethnicity of people where it is irrelevant to the issue.7. When necessary, provide comments on issues which require it, but try to present the majority of issues without comment.